dlew308

I have a quick question. I have a philips 724AT. It plays the PAL discs but it fills up the screen (4:3 sony tv). Would it look correct if I had a widescreen tv?

dlew308

The player has 3 modes, 4:3, LB, widescreen
I tried them all, same result

Matt Stevens

NO NO NO!!! If the player does not have a Mediamatics chip, it will not properly convert PAL to NTSC. The image will be stretched, regardless of what type of TV you have.

Malataman

The 3600 has NO overheating issue that was the 996.
The 3600 plays the faded subtitles in Attack of the Clones, I will have to check on TPM and let you guys know.
The only problem with the 3600 (and i just found out about this)is some intermitant pixelation.
I have a call in to China and have them working on a fix.

paranoized

Matt is right.

Although your player has "Mediamatics frame by frame 3:2 pulldown compensation" (http://www.outpost.com/product/3334222/), I haven't found anything stating that it uses the NDV8501 Pantera 2 decoder, which is what you need for proper PAL conversion.

dvd2001

I recently got the JVC500 from HKflix, as mentioned in some earlier posts. My first R2 PAL discs finally arrived, and so far I'm very pleased. I'm using this with a Sony 16x9 widescreen.

The first disc I tried was the new UK release of John Carpenter's "They Live". It's 16x9 widescreen, R2 PAL. It looks really good, much better than the out-of-print US version that I sold. At the beginning of the film, there's a scene where Roddy Piper walks into the unemployment office, and talks to a lady that is wearing a sort of zebra-pattern blouse. At first, there was a lot of video shimmering on the blouse, but then when I put the player in progressive mode, it solved that problem. By the way, I didn't really find any issues with "PAL speedup" that were objectionable.

I also watched "Crying Freeman" with Mark Dacascos (from Brotherhood of the Wolves). It's 4x3, but still looked very good, and I really liked the film.

Some of you have been talking about the "fade subtitles" on Phantom Menace. Are you talking about the R2 version of this film? I have the R1 2-disc SE if you want me to check anything on that.

Superdeluxxxe

I have recently received a Malata DAV-3600 and so did a friend of mine. I can confirm that there is definitely a playback pixelation problem on NTSC discs that we are both seeing. It occurs too frequently to be acceptable in my opinion. I have heard others who have seen this on the 520, but apparently it occurs much less frequently. This is only an issue in interlaced mode. It seemed to occur less frequently in still mode, which could be a good work around. We're still looking into this. We also have a 520 which has not shown these problems thus far.

The problem is not the combing problem that is often mentioned, but rather large blocks of digital hits which are often from another frame of picture. I don't think it has to do with the Mediamatics chip because I have not heard of this problem with the JVC model. Can anyone add some more info and/or experiences regarding this issue and either Malata or JVC units? Does anyone know Malata's policy regarding this?

paranoized

We're referring to the R1 version. Let us know if the english subtitles appear while characters are speaking "Nubian."

Malataman

I work for MALATA USA and we just found out about this and are working on this, as soon as i can i will get back to you with a fix.

paranoized

Are you describing two separate problems here? I'm not sure about the "pixelation" you mention in the first paragraph, could you describe it with more detail? How frequent is it?

The second paragraph description matches a known problem with the 520 -- occasionally a strip or block of the image will look "corrupt" for a second or two. I use that term because the effect is comparable to a corrupted JPEG picture. However, it doesn't appear to be a Mediamatics problem, because up to now it has only been reported in the Malata 520. No 996 or JVC users have complained about such a problem. Apparently Malata are looking into it.

Superdeluxxxe

The problem is as described in the second paragraph, large blocks or strips of "corrupt" image, appearing for only a few frames of picture. I actually had this happen on start up which was interesting. The disc had two copyright warnings that loaded on startup. The were stills in fact, not MPEG2 files, as there was no time running while they were displayed. When the warning changed from the first to the second a large block, or strip, of the image still displayed part of the first warning for the its duration. This was an interestng insight into what maybe happpening here.

The block may be green or black, or from another part of the movie, if it occurs near a cut. As you say, similar to a corrupted jpeg file. That sounds accurate to me. The fact that this occurs on two different units that were received within a day of each other signals a real problem. Hopefully there will be a firmware fix, but it may be too tied to hardware. I also have not heard any complaints about this from JVC owners, and apparently not 996 owners either.

To answer the question, it is occurring way to frequently, sometimes only once every 15 mintues, to as often as once every 3-5 minutes. Much too often to be acceptable. My opinion is that if it can't make through an entire movie without a glitch at least some of the time, it unacceptable.

The word from Malata Corp. is that the problem could be linked to the drive motor needing to be loosened up a bit through use. Some of the more well used players, not fresh out of the box, operate with apparently no glitches of this kind. So perhaps this is the problem. Units with more use on them that have the same hardware have been tested against "out of the box" units. Thanks to HKFLIX.com.

scholty

Alright... Now I am completely confused....

If I use a region hack on a DVD player I can play DVD's from Europe..

Now, this is where it gets fuzzy and please correct me because I think there are quite a few folks that are as lost as me...

Some DVD players are able to play PAL DVD's with Region 2 encoding on NTSC TV's.

Most DVD players that are able to be region hacked are NOT able to..?? What does it mean when it says that DVD's are sped up...? Is it like a 45rpm record being played at 72..??? (for those old enough to remember ;o))

Will my picture quality suffer..?

I would like to play Region 2 DVD's from England but mostly from Germany. What DVD player around $100 is able to do this on my regular Toshiba 36" TV..? Or do I just have to buy the bullet and buy a DVD player from HKFlix.com for $250 (The Malata 520)...


Right now I have a 10 year old multifunction vcr that is 'really' doing some blocky conversion at times... Want to go the DVD route without having to worry about it anymore....

Thanks for all of your help ahead of times... And sorry if this seems kind of elementary to some of you...

Scholty

paranoized

That's absolutely correct.

Get a Mediamatics player. I just put a FAQ up on the web (link below). Read it. It'll answer the questions you've just asked. If anything is unclear, please let me know.

paranoized

Wow, that is WAY over the top. My 520 would do it about once or twice, tops, during a feature length film -- and THAT was too much for me.

I'd expect it from a cheap Daewoo, but it's totally inexcusable for a $300 player.

There is validity to the drive "burn in" period, however if I had your machine, I wouldn't keep it long enough to find out! Let us know what happens...

Matt Stevens

>>What DVD player around $100 is able to do
>>this on my regular Toshiba 36" TV..?

NONE. You get what you pay for and $100 isn't enough to get a decent player for R1 only discs. If you want decent PAL playback on an NTSC TV, you must spend over $200. Anything under that price point will NOT do the job. Period. End of story.

The news about macroblocking on the Malata 3600 is very bad news. Looks like it follows the prior model in that regard. The N996 NEVER had a problem like that. It's still the king.

Seeker

thanks - i have a 3600 as well and would love to hear about a fix - i have an interlaced tv.

Matt Stevens

From what I have been told in the last 24 hours, it's due to "the spindle motor which needs to have some hours put on it. After some use, there is no abnormal pixelation issues."

So those of you that have the player, when you get up in the morning, pop a DVD in and keep the player running all day long for a few days. If the pixelization goes away, we know there is a fix. If not, Malata Canada is in for a lot of returns.

I may be getting my hands on one of these and will spend all my free time testing and reviewing it.

scholty

paranoized,

Thank you for the great FAQ... Now, if I understand this right with a regular Toshiba 36" TV (CZ32V61) even with a 520 I am crap out of luck watching PAL TV Show like Father Ted or german season replays of local shows..???

I have to get a HDTV to watch this right..?

Will I have better luck getting a new multifunction vcr...?

Thanks for the info...

paranoized

That's correct; you will see shimmering on those TV shows. If you can tolerate it, that's great, but it can be very annoying. Upgrading your TV to a progressive-scan model will eliminate the shimmering.

dvd2001

Here's some of my experiences with the JVC XV-S500.
As I mentioned above, I got this recently from HKflix, and have been very happy so far.

RE: the "fade subtitles" in The Phantom Menace R1 SE.
The JVC500 played them fine, without having the English subtitles turned on, meaning that the subtitles came on only in those parts where they were speaking some space language. The reference point I used is at the beginning of Chapter 15, about 35:00 time reference, when Jar-Jar snatches the snack in the outdoor market, and they're speaking "Huttese".

Part of the reason that I got the JVC is because my other player is a regular R1 JVC XV-S65, progressive, about a year old. I figured that the remotes would be interchangeable, and the units would look good together, and that's true.
This older R1 JVC65 unit DOES NOT play the "fade subtitles". In fact, you can't even switch them in from the remote, without first going back to the main menu and selecting subtitles, then resuming the film. After doing that, you can switch subs in an out from the remote, but it still doesn't play just the fade subs alone.

INTERESTING:
When I load Phantom Menace in the JVC500, the background pictures for the main menu, the chapters menu, and the options menu are all different than from when I load it in the JVC65. The menu choices are all the same, but the pictures on those screens are totally different.
For instance, in the Options menu on the JVC500, it shows young Annakin meeting with the Jedi group as the background scene. on the JVC65, it shows an outside scene with the mechanical droid characters.

The only drawback I've found so far for the JVC500 is that there doesn't seem to be any "trick" to remove the Zoom icon when you're using that feature. This isn't an issue for me, because my Sony 16x9 has it's own zoom, but some HD tvs lock out their zoom function if a DVD is improperly encoded as far as what type of screen format to trigger in the player (apparently this has occured on quite a few discs). If you want more info about that, go to hometheaterspot.com, to the JVC forum, and do a search for "zoom".
For the older JVC65, it's easy to get the zoom icon to disappear by holding down the "angle" button for about 2 seconds.

For me, so far, the JVC500 has been great.
I hope the info helps some of you tring to make a choice.

Paranoized, thanks for your mediamatics FAQ.

Josh Z

This is not the fault of your DVD player. The Phantom Menace disc is encoded with three different "menu worlds" that start up randomly each time you insert the disc.

raptor3076

DVD2001,

Who did you buy your JVC500 from? How long have you had it? I have to say I am a little mad at HKFlix because it sounds like they are selling players that have old firmware on them and if I had bought this same player at another dealer it would play the subs just fine. I went with HK because they got good feedback on DVD Talk and I kind wish I had not.

dvd2001

Josh,
On my system, it's not random. I've loaded the disc at least 4 times in each player, and every time I get the same scenes. I didn't really consider it a "fault", just made a note of it.

On the JVC500 all-region,
The main menu shows the spaceship landing in a downtown skyline scene.
The chapters menu is the senate meeting room.
The options menu is young Annakin meeting with the Jedi group.

On the JVCs65 R1 player,
The main menu is a fantasy mountain city, with domed copper roofs.
The chapters menu is the underwater city.
The options menu shows mechanical droid characters.

dvd2001

raptor3076,
This is right from my last post: "As I mentioned above, I got this recently from HKflix, and have been very happy so far."

To be more specific, I ordered it on 10/11, received it on 10/21.

I thought Jeff from HKflix was extremely helpful about provding information in some email exchanges, so I went ahead with the purchase.
I'd suggest contacting them and see what they say about whether there could be inconsistency of performance between the same player. I just don't know enough about it to be of much help. I simply posted my experiences to try to add to the information.
If it helps, the serial # of my unit is 097K6348.

For me, this "fade subtitle" thing wouldn't be enough of an issue to matter, as long as I could access the subs by switching them on from the remote. What I wanted was an all-region unit that would do a good job of playing anamorphic PAL discs, and that's what I got (judging from my limited experience so far).

Jlbkwrm

Gah. I just got mine delivered (granted, HKFlix shipped it to the wrong state, but it's still there) this week. I will be so upset if I have to turn around and return it.

Hopefully it's easily fixable.